


Q-niversal Constants

by stellar_dust



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Torchwood
Genre: Character Death, Crossover, Grief, Immortality, Incorporeal Sex, M/M, Omnipotence, Telepathy, Time Agency, Xeno, joy, quantum physics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:38:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellar_dust/pseuds/stellar_dust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q discovers Jack.  The results, as you might expect, span the universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Q-niversal Constants

**Author's Note:**

> **Note:** I've played fast and loose with the timelines here. Just go with it. It's not that important.
> 
>  **Also Note:** For those unfamiliar with TNG: all Q are called Q. This does not confuse Q in the least. With any luck it will not confuse you either.

1.

Q was bored.

Jean-Luc had told him in no uncertain terms to GO AWAY. Kathy was sleeping. Q was off with his mother, learning about the early stages of the evolution of sentient life-forms - _boring_ , Q thought, and _of course_ now that Q had learned a little discipline Q was willing to take on her share of the responsibility, it wasn't _fair_ \- and Q was meditating, which it seemed like he was _always doing_ since the war ended. _Boring_. That left the Klingons, the Romulans, the Cardassians, and the rest of the universe, and that was _all boring_.

Bored, bored, _bored, **bored, BORED**_.

Petulantly, Q kicked an uninhabited yellow star into a freshly formed nebula on the outskirts of the Delta Quadrant. The nebula glowed for a moment, expectantly, like it was keeping some magnificent secret from the rest of the universe -

\- and then the nebula exploded.

 _Beautiful_ , Q thought. Hypothetical arms hypothetically crossed, he let the shock waves wash over and through his noncorporeal form, lightly brushing his noncorporeal curls across his hypothetical forehead. _Bo-ring_.

Q imagined himself growing to a hundred times his previous size, until the supernova could have served him as a still-expanding, revolving pink tutu. Idly, he dipped the equivalent of his index finger into the outer edge of the gas cloud, stirring the atoms into molecules, then into amino acids, proteins, tissues ... when it was about to start worshiping him, Q pulled himself back in a hurry, letting his creation dissipate back into atoms as he cartwheeled to the other side of the galaxy, coming to rest in human form on a small airless rocky moon.

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Q flung himself onto his back, leaning his head on his intertwined fingers and scowling sightlessly up at the stars. Worshipers were so _boring_.

He bounced his foot against the nearest rock and gave into temptation. Cautiously, Q sent tendrils of his mind questing toward the _Enterprise_. As expected, Jean-Luc was still busy, devoting far more of his mind than necessary to mediating a pointless dispute between three insignificant, puny little mortal worlds. Frustrated at the short-sightedness of human beings, Q sent his mind onward, to the farthest reaches of the universe, the past, the possible futures...

That couldn't be right. Q frowned. The future was becoming _structured_. There was no certain future - that was still, thankfully, impossible - but the roiling plasma of quantum possibilities, the infinite field of choice and counterchoice, was _rippling_ , modulating itself into oscillating waves of concentric multidimensional spheroids.

It was as though someone had dropped a pebble into the fabric of space-time.

Overcome with curiosity, Q shed his human form and dived up and out into the quantum nanostructure of the universe, lightly tripping the foamy crests of probability, sliding through the troughs with all the grace and exhilaration of a professional surfer. Q laughed with the sheer joy of it, the relief, wanting, no, _needing_ to know what (or who?) or _what_ could be at the center, causing --

The smallest, final wave deposited Q once more, delicately, on the sandy shores of reality, and he turned, brushing the foam and sand from his knees, smiling, delighted, open, eager to see what sort of _pebble_ could have wrought all _this_ \--

Q's jaw dropped, or would have done, if he had a jaw.

It was a _human_. A _mortal human being_.

No, wait.

A human all right. But not - _not!_ \- a mortal.

Q steepled his fingers in front of the broad, diabolical grin that began to spread across his face.

Oh, this was going to be _fun_.

 

2.

Warily, Jack reached for the sonic blaster that should have been, but wasn't, safely at his side. He'd been sitting at Alex's desk ( _his_ desk, now, he reminded himself, swallowing hard), trying to work up the motivation to file a report on the ... the murder-suicide of Torchwood Three. He remembered closing his eyes, taking a long, deep breath, and reaching for the last swallow of Alex's whiskey, when instead of closing around the bottle his hand had knocked into something large, flat, and smooth. A wall.

He opened his eyes onto a crisp, bright white room. For half a heart-stopping second he thought he was back on Satellite Five filming _What Not To Wear_ , until the furniture, the décor, and the man seated on the dais before him brought back even older memories. He swiveled his chair slowly from side to side, taking it in, giving himself time to think.

Jack was in a Time Agency courtroom, seated in the defendant's box. His hands were free, but his ankles were shackled in place to the solid white base of his chair.

The Commandant stood up, leaning forward on his knuckles on the long white desk, towering over Jack. His lips were pursed in a disapproving frown under curling brown hair, and Jack couldn't help noting appreciatively that the toned body under the crisp white uniform tunic perfectly suited the lean face.

Then the man cleared his throat, narrowing his eyes, and Jack's mouth went dry. Was this really happening? _Had_ this happened? Was he finally remembering those three years? Had everything else - Rose, Torchwood, the _Doctor_ \- had it all been a dream, a hallucination?

" _Captain_ Jack Harkness," the Commandant ground out in slow, mocking tones. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm not - what?" The Agency didn't know him as Jack Harkness - he assumed, anyway - this couldn't be real. Could it? "What do you want?"

"I'm placing you on trial for crimes against the universe," the man said idly, falling back into his own chair and propping his feet on the desk.

Not really a commandant, then. Jack straightened his spine and curled his hands into fists. He'd face this as a Torchwood Officer and a Time Agent.

"Who are you? I've done nothing wrong, I demand that you release me!"

"Who, little old me?" the man drawled. "I'm Q, and I'll be your judge, jury, and executioner."

Jack blinked. _Executioner?_

"And as for _what you've done ..._ " In half a second he was down on Jack's level, leaning forward, his face only inches from Jack's. Jack held his ground, gazing levelly at the other man. "Do you _deny_ disrupting the fabric of space-time with your unnatural, _human_ immortality?"

"I -" Jack's mouth went slack. He could feel the palms of his hands sweating inside his fists, he wanted to wipe them on his slacks but he didn't dare move. "I - _what??_ "

"So you don't deny it. Good." The man - being? entity? _Time Lord?_ Jack's mind reeled - pushed himself away from the defendant's box and began to pace around the courtroom. "Sentence will be carried out immediately -"

"Wait - just hang on a second!" Jack lifted his hands, raising himself as far as he could with his feet in shackles. "What sentence? What are you going to do to me? Please, just tell me why I'm like this!" He tried to keep the desperation from his voice, failed miserably.

Q turned lazily in Jack's direction. "Oh, my apologies! We can do without those, I think." He waved at Jack's feet, and Jack stumbled, catching himself on the chair as the shackles unclasped and retreated.

"Why, Jackie? You want to know why?" Q was now perched on the desk, meters above Jack's head, his feet swinging as he leaned forward on his knees to peer sardonically down. He waved a hand in the air. "Why doesn't matter. The whim of fate, the winds of time, the immutability of destiny - what matters is you've done it, and you will. be. punished!"

"Wait!" Jack cried, throwing an arm in front of his face as Q's hand swung around in his direction. "I haven't entered a plea! If this is a Time Agency court-martial, I have the right to hear the charges read, along with the range of possible sentences, before I enter a plea!"

Q raised an eyebrow. "Very well, if you insist - we'll do this by the book." He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers imperiously. A door flashed into existence in the wall behind him, and through it walked a young woman in ensign's stripes carrying a sheet of flimsiplast. She leered at Jack derisively - there was a promise of blood in her gaze.

"You will read the charges," Q demanded.

The girl cleared her throat, snapped to attention, and began. "Count one. Perverting the limits of human mortality. The sentence for this - is death. Count two. Being a fixed point in time, thereby imposing unnatural structure on a naturally chaotic universe. The sentence for this," the girl here spared an eager, bloodthirsty glance in Jack's direction, "is also death."

"Dismissed!" Q cried out, clapping his hands, and the young ensign disappeared. "There! How do you plead, Jackie? How _do_ you plead?"

Q's eyes danced, and Jack had the sensation of being the butt of a cosmic practical joke. He pushed it aside - it didn't matter.

Jack pulled himself to his full height, arms held straight down at his sides. He felt his pulse pounding in his ears, his heart leaped to his mouth as his stomach plummeted to his feet, but he gave no outward sign of last-minute jitters. He'd made this decision decades ago, and if this was his chance, he was damn well going to take it.

His voice was steady as he unflinchingly met Q's gaze, and Jack Harkness plead "Guilty on all counts."

Q's brow rose incredulously. "What did you say?" he almost whispered.

"Guilty. I said _guilty_." Jack's voice was harsh. "What are you waiting for? Sentence to be carried out immediately, remember? Do it! Kill me! Do you want me to beg?"

Q's eyes closed, and when he opened them he was, again, only inches from Jack's face. He'd changed into some sort of ornate, formal robes, and a black cowl now covered his hair, draping around his neck.

"Congratulations, _Captain,_ " he said, and as he looked into Q's eyes Jack saw shock, respect, and an ennui so deep Jack nearly drowned. _I wish_ , Jack thought, but the rest of the desire wouldn't form.

"Congratulations," Q whispered in his ear. "You pass."

"But I'll be watching you."

With a snap of Q's fingers the room faded back into the Hub, Jack's hand on the whiskey bottle and paperwork spread before him.

Jack rubbed his eyes. Had it been a dream? It had been years since he'd truly dreamed, and it had felt - so real. If he concentrated he could picture every inch of the being's face, could hear his whisper lingering in the air.

Shaking his head, Jack rose and walked to the storage room where he kept a cot. Didn't matter. Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow he'd get that report finished, and finally start putting together a new team.

 

3.

Q had barely a moment of warning. He pulled himself into a ball of anti-time and watched with astonishment (and not a little delight) as time recoiled on itself, a year's worth of certainties decrystalizing back into the foam of probability. Intrigued, he let his attention drift from the _Enterprise_ (which would now be replaying its last year to the _letter_ anyway - bo-ring) and followed the coil of released time back to its source.

He was entirely unsurprised to discover Captain Jack Harkness, his favorite pebble of all the pebbles, striding purposefully through the middle of downtown Cardiff.

Irrepressibly grinning, Q materialized himself right in the captain's path.

"Q!" Jack sidestepped, not quite in time to avoid running into Q's humanoid form. Q straightened him with a hand on his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked. "Come to kill me again?"

"Jackie, you wound me. I was in the neighborhood, and when I noticed this intriguing _temporal anomaly_ .. surely you understand." He smiled sardonically, made eye contact, didn't move his hand from Jack's shoulder.

 _What am I doing?_ Q thought.

"Hey, you can't blame me for that!" Jack flashed a grin, and Q felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Whatever had happened, Jack was a hell of a lot more exuberant than he'd been at the trial. Q liked it. "It was all the Doctor's doing."

"Oh _him_." Q waved dismissively. "Mortals mucking about with time. They really should know better."

"Hey, watch it." There was a hint of steel beneath the teasing banter in Jack's tone. "That _mortal_ saved my life, more than once. Not to mention the universe."

"Yes, well -" A comeback about the futility of saving an immortal being's life died on Q's lips as he remembered the mortals to whom he owed his own existence. _Ah, Jean-Luc._

Something in his demeanor must have softened, because Jack's hard grin turned to a soft smile as he reached out tentatively to touch the side of Q's face. "I think you know exactly what I mean, Q."

It frightened Q how ready he was to lean into that palm.

"Come with me, Jack," he urged impulsively. "I want to show you something." _Something a Time Lord never could_ , he privately added.

"I'd love to," Jack began, "but -"

With a grin, Q snapped his fingers.

"- I need to get back to my - Q!" Jack rounded on him, annoyance warring with affection in his face.

"Turn around, Jackie," Q said quietly, pushing his arm. Jack complied, and went completely still for a few seconds.

"Is that -?" he asked, his voice soft and reverent.

"It's how I see you, Captain Jack."

Q held them suspended in an air-filled bubble of time and matter, over the center point of the still-expanding, infinitely multidimensional ripples of quantum possibility. The whitecaps sparkled and glistened, never still, sending metaphorical-but-visible rainbows of probability dancing into the void, catching in Q's hair, Jack's coat.

"A fixed point in time and space," Q mused, with not a little sardonic humor. "You really are the center of the universe, you know."

"I -" Jack gasped out, reaching for Q's hand, holding tight. "Is this why the Doctor -"

"I don't know what he sees," Q said. He brought the bubble closer to the ripples, stepped a little closer to Jack's side. "But I - I see order in the midst of chaos, and in the center, something that .." Q swallowed, shocked at his own sincerity. "Some _one_ who has the capacity to handle it without going mad, someone who'll - who'll never --"

"Never leave?" Jack asked softly. His hand was on Q's face again, and this time Q didn't resist, he turned into it, let Jack weave his fingers through his hair and draw his head down to rest on Jack's shoulder. He almost couldn't bear the intimacy, the sincerity of the gesture, something he'd never allow himself with Q, or Q, or even Jean-Luc, only this impossibly immortal mortal who was stroking his back, so gently, so -

"Oh, Q," Jack sighed. "Aren't there others like you, eternal beings who -"

"Jack," Q pushed himself back, regaining his composure, at least a little. "Would the phrase 'more boring than the Time Lords' mean anything to you?"

Jack laughed. "All right, point. But why test me, if you knew all this?"

".. It was fun?"

Jack grinned mischievously, beautifully, and before Q had quite grasped what was about to happen he was being kissed soundly, his corporeal body pressed firmly against Jack's, Jack's hands in his hair, roaming across his Starfleet uniform; Q felt uncertainty and elation, joy and guilt all at once. He didn't know what to do with his hands or his feet or his mouth but decided that copying Jack move for move was a good start. Jack seemed to agree, and with a moan Q released his hold on the gravity within their bubble of reality. He hooked his knees around Jack's legs, pulling them ever closer to .. something, he wasn't sure .. as they tumbled weightless above the quantum ripples, bouncing in slow motion from crest to crest.

"Q." Jack's voice was low, husky, as he nibbled on Q's ear.

"Mmm?"

"Get rid of this." He pinched Q's shoulder through his uniform.

"Oh, right, you humans -" Q banished his clothes to the void, sent Jack's back to Earth, to the room he thought of as home.

"Better?" Still entwined, flesh to flesh, Q moved against Jack, reveling, categorizing the sensations. He'd never had sex in humanoid form before, and - well, it was a little weird, but nice, and none of the disgusting bits were happening yet. He felt a brief moment of panic at the thought of the disgusting bits; well, Jack would just have to -

"Not what I meant," Jack laughed, eyes sparkling. "I mean, get rid of _this_." He reached around Q, and pinched his backside.

"Hey!" Q jumped, indignant, then stilled as Jack's meaning dawned. " _Captain_. No. No, I'll have you know I can make this body do anything -"

"That's just it. Look, there I am out there, and in here," Jack waved at the rippling expanse below them, then down at his own naked body. "I want to see _you_ , Q, just as clearly as you can see me. _I_ want to make your body do things."

"I'll hurt you," Q protested. "Mortals can't -"

"Not mortal," Jack reminded him gently. "But you're right, dying would be inconvenient right now. Whatever you can show me safely, okay?" Jack chuckled. "Honestly. You'd think I never had sex with a noncorporeal entity before."

"What, really?"

"51st century Time Agent here. I can provide some references if -"

Q grinned, and put a finger to Jack's lips, shutting him up. If this was what Jack wanted, well, he didn't have to say it twice. Jack bit down on the tip of Q's finger, licking it with his tongue, and sucking ever so gently as Q slowly released his hold on the matter that made up his corporeal body; slowly, incrementally the finger in Jack's mouth shifted into gas and electrical impulses. Jack's eyes fluttered closed and he moaned as he slowly, slowly breathed in.

Q couldn't think. He could not _think_ , his impulses were on _fire_ \- he'd never imagined part of himself as being different from any other, but the molecules of his that were inside of Jack were throbbing with ecstasy, and he wanted nothing more than to feel that way in every single corner of his being for ever and -

and Jack breathed slowly out again.

Faster than a thought the sensations spread through Q's essence, rippling outward from Jack's mouth, electrons firing in a cascading sequence of sparks and color and color and sparks as subatomic particles separated and reformed through every element in the periodic table, carbon uranium neon gold hydrogen, once ("Ja-"), twice ("Ja-!"), three times, and "Jack!" Q projected telepathically as he contracted once, and then again, and the diamonds that were the waste products of his chemical reaction showered over Jack and spun, weightless, through the air in the bubble.

"I'll clean that up in a minute," Q projected an impression of breathless awe. "I'm just going to lie here in a gaseous heap ..."

"God, Q, that was gorgeous," Jack whispered, reclining back into Q, who made portions of himself physical enough to support the pressure. "You're beautiful. Can I see it again?"

"You're incorrigible." Q's voice reverberated around them. "Actually, I have a better idea, but give me a minute here. Where'd you learn to do that, anyway, young man?"

"A nice Metron lady in a bar on Aldebaran," Jack replied, sounding far too pleased with himself. He dangled a finger into the cloud of Q at his hip and stirred, a small circular motion that fired one or two electrons every time around. Q sighed with bliss. "You like it?"

"I - it's - not bad," Q conceded, his extreme lassitude (not to mention pleasure) overcoming his disdain at the idea that a mere _Metron_ might know something he didn't.

Jack snickered a little, and Q, recovering, began to reshape more and more of his essence. He sent little prickles of sensation up and down Jack's body in a spiraling pattern, slowly at first, then faster, starting at the top of Jack's head, down to his toes and then back up again. "Oh _Q_ ," Jack moaned, quivering, and moved to reciprocate, reaching toward Q with his mind so his arms and legs and mouth knew just where to aim puffs of air, just where to stir Q's essence to keep them equally poised and on edge. And then when Q had surrounded Jack entirely, made just enough of himself into an oxygen-rich atmosphere to sustain Jack's breathing (that amazing, magnificent breath), he dissolved the reality bubble and lowered the two of them onto the surface of the roiling quantum sea.

Jack gasped and sent a feeling of inchoate wonder into Q's mind, and the quantum-surf-that-was-Jack caressed him roughly from the outside, tossing him this way and that in the rippling waves of probability while the warm-body-that-was-Jack stroked and stirred and _breathed_ him, now more and more urgently from the inside.

Q began to slow the waves of electricity that he was still sending up and down Jack's body, and Jack moaned, and writhed, and it felt _so good_ in Q's center; he made part of himself into a pocket that was soft and firm and tight, and as he wrapped it around Jack's erection Q _dove_ into the quantum sea, and saw that the ripples continued in seven dimensions under the surface; he sped off toward the center of that magnificent, magnificent anomaly and the feeling of those ripples speeding through his molecules fed back into Jack's orgasm, and the sensation of Jack's convulsions as he came with Q's name in his throat was too much, too much - he cycled through the elements, once, twice, three times, _four_ times around, he took Jack's semen into himself, dissolved it into its constituent particles and bonded them to his own chemical waste products, and he flung them with reckless abandon to the corners of the universe --

\-- and then they were both human, and in Jack's bed, and Q was kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him.

***

Some time later, as they lay, contemplating each other, heads propped on elbows, Jack said, "So, do I pass?"

Q stared blankly for a moment, then with a loud guffaw he threw himself onto his back, one arm flung over his head, laughing as he really didn't think he'd _ever_ laughed before. "God, yes."

Chuckling, Jack leaned over and planted a kiss on Q's collarbone, caressing his chest with one hand as he did. "I had to check."

"Hey," Jack interrupted himself in the middle of kissing his way down Q's ribs. "I really do have to go see my team. They've been waiting - actually I'm not sure how long."

"Mmm," Q agreed. He ruffled Jack's hair. "Want me to put you back where I found you?"

Jack stood up, and began to pull his clothes back on. "Nah. Torchwood's used to weird." He paused at the staircase, looked back. "Hey, Q? Thanks for, you know, this. I needed ... especially today, it was good to hear that not everyone thinks I'm, I don't know, some kind of freak temporal mutation it hurts to look at."

"I never said you aren't a freak temporal mutation! I just said you're a gorgeous one. I don't see how anyone could miss that."

Jack smiled and made to move up the stairs again, when Q called him back. "Oh, and Jack, thanks for - well, you know what for. It's good to ... just, Jack? If anyone ever offers you .. what I offered you, please tell them no." Q looked at the floor, the bed, anywhere but Jack, not sure he had a right to ask, not sure he could stand knowing a being like Jack existed in the universe and then _losing_ him.

"Oh, Q." And Jack was right there, suddenly, pulling his chin up, then kissing him and looking him straight in the eyes. "I promise."

"Well then," Q stepped back, self-consciously straightening the tunic of his uniform. "That's settled. I'm off - things to do, starships to annoy, you know how it is."

"See you around, Q." Jack dashed off an informal salute. As Q winked out of his room he felt a breath of air flow past his body, and he was sure he heard it whisper, "Soon."

 

4.

Jack felt it first: a slight shift in the air pressure, a static charge just a little more intense than the background environment of the TARDIS. If he could feel it, of course the Doctor had noticed. Jack peered across the console, meeting the Doctor's gaze. With a slight smile, the Doctor nodded toward the door. "Go on, meet your friend, I'll finish up here."

"Thanks, Doc!" Landing a grateful kiss on the Doctor's cheek and receiving an eye-roll in return, Jack bounded for the hallway.

"If you see the Ponds, send them along!"

"Will do!" Jack called back, rounding the corner by Amy and Rory's closed (and locked) door on the way to his own room.

He threw the door open, and a delighted greeting died on his lips. That answered why Q hadn't appeared in the console room this time - the entity was burrowed into Jack's bed, as far under the covers as he could get, his shoulders heaving.

"Q!" Jack rushed forward and onto the bed, pulling Q up to sit by his side. There were bags under Q's red-rimmed eyes, his hair was a mess, and his uniform was torn in three places. "Q, what happened?"

"It's - Jean-Luc." Q pulled his knees to his chest, and seemed to grow smaller before Jack's eyes. "Jack, he's gone, Jean-Luc's gone, and I don't - I'm sorry." He wiped the back of his arm across his eyes. "I've spent the last two days in the heart of a sun, it didn't help, Q doesn't understand, I didn't know where else to -"

"Hey, hey, hey, it's ok," Jack soothed. He pulled Q's head down onto his shoulder and stroked his back, whispering condolences into Q's ear while tremors of exhaustion, fear, and grief wracked his body. "Did you -?"

"Of course I asked!" Q pulled back for a moment, and his glare hit Jack with only about half the force of his usual condescension. "He wouldn't _let_ me! 'Q,' he said, he- he said, 'I've had more years than I deserve, and I've been honored to spend some of them with you, but it's time now, and I'm ready. Please promise you'll let me go.' I promised, Jack, what else could I do, but now he's gone and ... it doesn't make sense that he's _gone_! I should have brought him back! I should _go bring him_ \---"

"I know. I know, Q." Striving for calm, Jack reached for one of Q's hands, found it, pulled it into his lap. "I know it hurts. But you did the right thing, Q. I promise you did the right thing."

Jack rocked Q in his arms, slowly, while the entity took breath after shuddering breath. He remembered the mess he'd been, after - after Ianto and Steven, how much he owed Q for finding him, slapping some sense into him and dragging him onto the TARDIS. He pulled Q closer, silently giving thanks that he'd at least had the presence of mind to find Jack.

"Jack," Q said, after a while, in a very small voice, "I can't hold on any more. Can I -?"

"Of course, Q. Anything."

Jack pushed himself back against the wall, and held onto Q's hand while he stood. The look in Q's eyes was desperate, panicked; Jack held on even tighter, and the last thing Jack felt as all the air in the room exploded was _anger fear grief despair loneliness rage loneliness - Jack - JACK, NO!_

***

Jack woke up to Q's terrified face looking down on him.

"Feeling better?" Jack grinned and pushed himself upright.

"You're an _idiot_ ," Q hissed. "You are a stupid, mindless, reckless human _idiot_ and if you ever let me do anything like that ever _again_ I swear to Q I will -"

Jack shrugged. "No harm done, and you obviously needed it, so let's forget about it."

"I needed to _release_ my emotions, not transfer them onto you, Jack! Of all the _pointless_ .."

Jack sat placidly, waiting for Q to wind himself down, knowing it would happen sooner or later.

"... but anyway, it did help, so thank you." Q sat heavily down on the bed and let his head fall into his hands. "Oh, Jackie, Jackie, you and me - why do we keep falling for mortals?"

"I don't know, Q, but I wouldn't have it any other way." Jack rested a hand on Q's shoulder, and Q leaned toward his warmth.

"Jack! Jack, are you -" The Doctor burst into Jack's room, arms up, ready to whip out some Venusian aikido on anyone threatening his companion.

"Doctor! It's okay, we handled it." At Jack's words, the Doctor paused to take in the tableau on the bed, the atmosphere in the room. His en-garde stance softened into compassion as his eyes fell on Q. He held out a hand.

"Welcome aboard, Q of the Continuum."

"Good to see you too, Doctor."

"Nice uniform."

"Captains are cool. Nice bow tie."

"Bow ties are - all right, Jack, he can stay."

 

5.

Q noticed when the Doctor died. The entire _Continuum_ noticed when the Doctor died - you can't be that important to the integrity of the timelines and not make sparks in the higher planes of existence.

Q didn't look for Jack, not immediately. He kept his entire being tuned, though, like a cosmic radar dish, and it so happened that he was only a single system distant when he heard the familiar voice say "Q."

He popped into existence on a mountaintop in Betelgeuse. It was a crisp, clear morning; orange sunlight filtered through the purple leaves, dappling Jack's coat as he stood on a cliff, silhouetted against the skyscrapers and fly-lanes of the city below.

"I'd have come tomorrow anyway," said Q. He stepped forward and snaked an arm around Jack's waist.

"I know. I could feel you hovering." Jack smiled a bit at Q's obvious outrage as he began to sputter out a protest. "Don't bother denying it, you're a hoverer."

As Jack turned toward him, Q searched his face, brushing lightly across the top of his mind to try and gauge his emotional state. Jack smiled again, and leaned forward, until the two of them stood in a loose embrace, temple to temple, arms around each others' backs, mouths next to ears.

"How are you, Captain?" Q asked, the old term of endearment coming naturally to his lips.

"I'm okay," Jack spoke softly. "Glad to see you. It was - it was all right, in the end. Not as bad as I expected and much worse at the same time. You know."

Q nodded. He pulled Jack closer, stroked the back of his neck, and Jack let himself collapse boneless into Q's side. He stood, quietly, listening to Jack's breath, trying to be a fixed point for a fixed point.

After a while Q murmured, "The Continuum's gone mad, again, trying to decide who has to take charge of the timelines now."

Jack snorted, chuckled a little, tried to get some leverage to stand but ended up only pulling them both to the grass. "You know you'd be perfect for that, right?"

"Ha! Over my _dead body_ , and I mean that." Q hadn't forgotten that Jack was still gripping his hand like a vise. "Let Q do it, it's about time that child took some real responsibility. C'mere." Q pulled them under the shade of a tree, tugging Jack around until Q could put an arm around his shoulder and hold his hand at the same time. "Or, for that matter, I could always make _you_ a Q, it wouldn't take a second."

"Don't you _dare_!" Jack poked Q in the shoulder. Jack twisted until he could reach Q's hand on his shoulder, and now they were holding both hands, Jack's head resting on Q's chest amidst a pretzel of arms. "Q? Thank you for coming."

"Of course, Jack, I -" Q swallowed. There was something delicate and precious in his chest. It was hard to get the words past it. He pulled Jack closer. "Captain Jack Harkness, I will always be here for you. Always. I thought it went without saying."

"I know, and likewise, but Q - thank you all same."

They sat for a moment, as the sun rose higher in the sky, orange giving way to a lighter blue.

"Q?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you take me back there? You know, to the place? With the ripples?"

"Of course." Q stroked Jack's cheek with a finger, and in an eyeblink, they were there.

He didn't bother with an air bubble this time, or a corporeal form for that matter; Q simply turned part of himself into atmosphere and held Jack safe and close with the rest of him.

The multidimensional spheroid of quantum ripples was unchanged, still expanding, attenuating, reforming; the foamy crests of possibility moved out, and out, and ever out to the future. It was so beautiful, and so familiar at once, that Q thought his heart might break with the knowledge that he held its author protected in his substance. He held tighter, and created a little more air.

"Jack?" Q projected. Jack was so still, unnaturally still, silently watching the waves roll by.

"It's still there." Jack's voice sounded so thin, so lost.

"Oh, Jack, of course it's still there. This was never him. It was always _you_."

Q made part of himself solid, inside with Jack, and Jack clung to him, tightly, wordlessly, as the tears ran down his face in time with the rippling foam below.

They hung there for an age, the omnipotent entity and the immortal human, as though the universe had ended and time moved on without them. And after not so very long, it seemed that perhaps this was not such a wretched fate after all.

 

6.

Jack stood on a cliff and watched the universe end.

There he was, and Martha Jones, and the Doctor, running towards safety - so much running in those days. So much running _still_.

"Captain Jack!" Q flashed into human form at his side. "And how are you this fine, fine universe-ending day?"

"Contemplating mortality," Jack said. "And time, and change, and the universe. Hi, Q. How's the Continuum?"

"Oh, you know. Packing, tying loose ends, getting ready to move to the next universe over." He sighed.

"Are you going?"

"I guess. What else would I do?"

Jack didn't answer. There was no answer, and he had no idea what he wanted to hear.

"I could change all this," Jack said after a moment. "I could warn them about Yana. Steal the fob watch. Sabotage the shuttle so it won't take off."

Jack was aware that Q was watching him intently.

"But what difference would it really make? A shift in the ripples? I'd still be here, at the end of the universe, watching it happen."

"So you won't."

"I won't."

"You like that power, don't you, Jack?" Q had moved closer, still not touching. "Knowing you could. Knowing you won't."

Jack tilted his head, contemplating. "I don't think it's the sort of power that you _like_. It's the sort of power that you _gain_ , when you've lived this long; and it's the sort of power that you accept. It's less a power to use than a power to _be_. And for what it's worth, I'm content with it."

"Jack." Q was smiling; his eyes shone. "If only half the Q were as wise as you."

"Still testing me, Q, after all these years?"

"Funny, that's the same thing Jean-Luc said."

"What happens to me when the universe ends, Q?"

"I don't know, Jack. I could take you with us, protect you; make you a Q ...."

Jack shook his head. "No. It's okay. I'll take whatever comes."

Jack could feel it, the fear radiating from Q. He countered it with his own resigned, bone-deep sadness.

"Let's not find out. Not yet." Q's voice was resolute, certain; the atmosphere on the cliffside brightened, became tinged with hope, and Jack opened himself again, tentatively, to the wonder that was always Q.

"What do you mean?"

"O Captain Jack, my favorite pebble of all the little pebbles: let's do it again. Let's do the universe again, start to finish, one more time, you and me together."

Q reached his hand toward Jack, wiggled the fingers; the gesture and the wild grin that went with it were so familiar that Jack laughed with wonder and delight.

The Doctor would tell him no, that it was wrong and dangerous; but Jack was learning every day that the Doctor was mortal, and fallible, and in some ways limited. Jack had passed the last test - he'd passed all the tests, and he knew, he _knew_ that he could do this. He could do this, and he could do it again, and again, and again - the universe was infinite, and full of wonder and joy and beauty and _possibility_ enough for a thousand infinite lifetimes, and it was _his_ , and Q had shown him that.

Jack took Q's hand. He smiled. "I feel like I missed the first half, that time."

Q smiled back, giddy, wondrous, amazed. "Oh, Jackie, the first half was the best - the good old days, when the Continuum were mortal and the Time Lords were idiots."

"Manners." And the best thing, with Q along, he knew he'd never, ever be bored.

"It's true. I _know_ the Doctor told you about them. Id-i-ots."

"Just promise you'll never, ever turn me into a Q."

"A fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy, I assure you."

And with a diamond flash of light, they were gone.

***

Martha happened to glance back, just as she passed through the door to the bunker. She looked again, frowning; the end of the universe was dark, dim, almost entirely the victim of entropy. The sky had been a dark void when they landed.

But she really could have sworn she'd just seen a star.


End file.
